Oil tycoon's ex-wife rejects $975 million divorce settlement
The ex-wife of an Oklahoma oil magnate who was awarded the second biggest divorce settlement ever in the United States has turned down a personal check for $974.8 million on Tuesday as she continues to fight for more money.
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Sue Ann Arnall has appealed the ruling made last month in an Oklahoma City, Oklahoma courtroom, citing 78 alleged errors and missteps that caused a judge to grossly undervalue her stake in the vast oil fortune of Harold Hamm.
She slammed the court's ruling as 'inappropriate' and 'not fair', believing her ex-husband is worth an estimated $18 billion.
Hamm's offer to pay ex-wife Sue Ann Arnall immediately the full cash value of what he owes based on the November divorce ruling was rejected, Hamm's lawyer, Michael Burrage, said in an emailed statement.
'Ms. Arnall, through her counsel, stated that they were rejecting the ... payment because Ms. Arnall did not want to risk the dismissal of her appeal by acceptance of the benefits,' Burrage wrote to Reuters.
Hamm founded Continental Resources in 1967 and Arnall was an executive at the company.
The couple were married 26 years but never signed a prenuptial agreement.
Hamm had already paid his former wife more than $20 million during the divorce proceedings.
Arnall has taken ownership of the Oak Ridge Ranch in Carmel, California, a property purchased by the couple in 2011 for $14.7million, along with the couple's two of their Oklahoma properties, as per the court's ruling.
Mr. Hamm will take their $750,000 home in Branson, Missouri and a $300,000 log cabin that sits on 154 acres in Major County, Oklahoma.
Arnall made it clear she believed the marital wealth she was entitled to had been grossly undervalued.
The only spouse to ever score a bigger settlement in the United States was Jocelyn Wildenstein, who reportedly received $2.5billion after splitting with her businessman and art dealer husband Alec in 1999.
Miss Arnell stated that she felt that the decision by Judge Howard Haralson to allow lawyers for both her husband and for Continental Resources to be involved in the proceedings was 'inappropriate' in that it allowed them to 'double team' her.
The crux of the argument though comes down to how much money the company and Mr. Hamm made beginning in 1988, the year he and Miss Arnall were married.
During the trial it was argued that Continental’s growth stemmed mostly from passive factors, such as rising oil prices, and, under Oklahoma law, only the 'active' portion of wealth accrued during marriage in previously acquired assets is subject to division.
Miss Arnall’s lawyers contend however that Judge Haralson miscalculated what was due to her by attributing only a small portion of a $14billion rise in the value of Mr. Hamm's Continental shares during the marriage - 6 percent.
'As Sue Ann has stated previously, 6 percent is not a fair proportion of the wealth the couple accumulated during their marriage, and she trusts that a more equitable division of the marital estate will result from this appeal,' her legal team said in a statement.
Miss Arnall, who worked as a lawyer for Continental when she and Mr. Hamm married, and went on to take a series of executive roles at the company, also claims that Judge Haralson undervalued her own contributions to the couple’s wealth.
Most estimates have stated that Continental Resources was worth around $50million in 1988 when the couple married, which is just a drop in the well when compared to the $20billion behemoth it is today.
A behemoth that Mr. Hamm has a 68 percent stake in, a stake he lost none of in the divorce as it was determined to be 'separate property.'
All this, combined with lingering timeline questions presented by Miss Arnall that question whether strategic moves that ultimately yielded giant profits for the company happened before or after the couple's 1988 wedding, will likely cause this case to drag on for as long as two more years.
That aforementioned $9billion fortune of Mr. Hamm's was in fact a $20billion fortune as recently as August, with the oil baron forced to watch over half his worth slip away due to a drop in the price of crude oil.
Filing for divorce in March 2013, Miss Arnall alleged in court papers that her husband was having an affair, citing that as the reason for termination of the marriage.
Mr. Hamm had over the course of their marriage grown to become one of the richest men in the world, a far cry from his youth and a true embodiment of the American dream.
Born one of 13 children to a sharecropper, Mr. Hamm worked his way up, picking cotton as a child, pumping gas and fixing cars by the time he was 20 and eventually saving up enough money to drill his first well.
And while Mr. Hamm, who was previously married and has three children from that union, is no fan of the spotlight, he has not exactly shunned it over the past few years.
In 2012, Mr. Hamm became a big part of Mitt Romney's presidential campaign when he was appointed energy adviser, a gesture he thanked the politician for by donating $985,000 to the pro-Romney super PAC Restore Our Future.
Mr. Hamm also hosted a fundraiser at his $4.6 million Nichols Hills, Oklahoma mansion for the Republican candidate, which raised more than $2million.
It is worth noting that the Nichols Hill mansion is no longer Mr. Hamm's but, along with a $800,000 home in Enid, Oklahoma, the property of Miss Arnall.
Credit: MailOnline
